Murphy and McDonald

The plan is to finally have internet by the end of this week (Friday, November 4th - the day I got pregnant with Krissa last year - ha! Last Chance For 2010/Age 30) which will be 4 weeks since my last update - eek! My mind is too jumbled to remember all that has happened since then, and I feel my pictures on picasa give a pretty good day-by-day account of our life, so just like when I started this blogsite last year without updates, I will return to non-update-style posts. However, I will add some things in my next couple of posts that I forgot to write in my last update (The Last Big One!)

The first one (the only one for today) is that when I went to the pumpkin patch/apple orchard the first weekend in October with Joe's HS friends, I ran into my college friend/sophomore year roommate who lives in my new neighborhood! I had blogged a few months ago about how, coincidentally, she sent Joe his work information when he started at his new job because she works in the HR department there. It was then that I found out she lives just a block away from our new house. We've corresponded via facebook (and years ago, MySpace), but hadn't seen each other in person in ten years. So imagine my surprise when I put down my camera from snapping a picture of the entrance of the pumpkin patch/apple orchard at the same time that a woman and I made eye contact. She said, "Andrea!" It was Sarah (formerly Perau, now Goins).

We stopped to chat briefly; she had her 11 month old daughter (Avery) with her and I introduced her to Logan and Krissa. We both said we look forward to getting together sometime soon.

I had a flashback to being nineteen and twenty year old roommates at Iowa State University and wondered what memories come first to her mind. Are they the same ones as mine, or are they times I have forgotten?The first moment that I saw Sarah was on the second day of my freshman year of college. My first class on Tuesdays was Sociology. We had 600 students in our lecture hall at Curtis. So, my mind was already wandering as I noticed a girl arrive a little late a few rows ahead of me. She stood out to me because she was very dressed up. Half of the students were still in their pjs. But there was this tall, thin, blonde - hair cut in a bob and make up perfectly applied - who was wearing clothes like she'd just stepped out of a magazine.

She sat down and I re-focused on the professor for the remainder of the class. However, when I went to my next class, HDFS-something-or-another, I scanned the room for a left handed desk. It was a much smaller class than Sociology (approximately100 students) so there was only one open left handed seat. As I made my way through the row of students, I glanced at the desk next to the one I had chosen – and did a double take: it was the girl from the class before.

She smiled and said hello as I reciprocated and sat down. I made a comment about being left-handed, and she introduced herself. As we waited for class to begin, we began chatting – the usual “where are you from?” (she was born and raised in Lincoln, Nebraska but moved to Marshalltown, Iowa when she was in high school) “what's your major?” (fashion design and merchandising) “what dorm do you live in?” (she lived in Friley)

We began sharing stories about our "psycho" roommates. When we arrived to class on Thursday, we chose seats next to each other again and continued to do so every class for the remainder of the semester. By the final day of our HDFS class, despite never having hung out together outside of class, we had agreed to be roommates the following year.

It is incredibly interesting to me now how, if it wasn't for that decision, I may never have met, let alone married, Joe.

The day before I had met Sarah was the FIRST day of my freshman year of college. In my very first class on Monday, English 105, there were only about 15 other students. We were apart of a “test” group that our journalism department was doing – the 15-20 of us (all journalism majors) were going to have the exact same schedule all freshman year long so that we could stick together. (Everyone did end up with someone they clicked with and were good friends with the remainder of college, but for the most part the group didn't turn out to be anything special, so I don't think that the department ever did it again.)

As in every group that size, it doesn't take long for everyone to recognize who the “leader” is. Right off the bat, I identified that someone as Kathy. Kathy, a tall, dark haired girl with an hourglass figure, was talkative, friendly, and confident. She sat in the middle of the front row and I watched as everyone flocked to her and looked to her to be the spokesperson of our group. In the days that followed, more and more students took seats in the front of the classroom and involved themselves in her conversation that she mainly had with the guy next to her, Mitch.

I admit, I didn't say anything to her because I was intimidated by her. I stayed in the middle of the classroom, next to the girl who I hit it off most with from our journalism group and who has remained my friend to this day (Christy Steffen, who ended up being my junior year roommate).

But, Kathy and I lived in the same dorm (Willow) and so whenever we passed each other, we would always smile and say hello. Then one night Kathy called me on the phone (being a part of the Jscoop group meant that we were given everyone's contact info). She was having trouble writing her paper that was due the next day and was desperate for help. To this day, Kathy says it was that night that made her switch from journalism to marketing.

She knew that I liked to write (I always hurried home as soon as I'd get an assignment to write a paper because I couldn't wait, lol), and so I helped her late that night.

After that, when we'd see each other around, we would stop to talk. One day she was passing me in the hall of our journalism building with one of the girls from our class who appeared desperate to be Kathy's friend and seemed to think she had to be stuck up to do so. I said hi to them and the other girl stopped and stared at me, looking me up and down. “I'm sorry, do I know you?”

I'm sure I blushed as I opened my mouth to speak, but Kathy looked at her strangely and said, “It's Andrea! How can you not know Andrea?!” as she hugged me.

I immediately felt myself relax and I smiled at her appreciatively. Still, I never would have guessed we would end up friends and that she would actually be the one to introduce me to my future husband.

On the last day of our freshman year, we were turning in our psychology final tests at the same time and she said, “I heard we're going to be floor buddies next year!”

Confused, I asked her what she meant. She explained that her friend Tracie played volleyball/was friends with Sarah and so they'd both picked the third floor of Friley Hall, Murphy house, to live sophomore year – and so Kathy and Tracie's two other friends (Ashley and Amanda) were going to live there, too. (Sarah had told them that she was rooming with me.)

Just like in our journalism class, Kathy became the leader of our floor. Everyone wanted to hang out in her room, but every single night she came to hang out in Sarah & my room instead (with Tracie, Ashley, and Amanda), and so our group stayed just the six of us girls (until the last couple of months we also began hanging out with Molly who lived across from Sarah & me, and now lives in West Des Moines with her husband and twin son & daughter; she works as a photographer so I plan to have her take pics of my kids sometime). (The following picture is of Amanda, Molly, Kathy, and Tracie)Below are Ashley, Tracie, Sarah, Kathy, and me:I soon learned that Kathy, who had the title of social chair of our floor, had made us the sister floor to our brother floor, McDonald house at Helser (a.k.a. Mitch's floor). Through Mitch the previous year Kathy had met Joel Petersen from that floor. . .her future husband. :-) Ashley had met Jon Johnson from the floor...her future husband. :-) The other McDonald house guys who we hung out with were Ryan (Dahlby), Matt (Bergman), Jayson (Koopmans). . .and a guy named Joe Rodgers.

Kathy introduced both Sarah and me to Joe one 1999 fall afternoon in the Friley/Helser dining hall (for the complete story, read Our Love Story on my old blogsite). But there would be other guys before Joe and I became a couple in May of 2000, and many crazy stories – for it was my “coming of age” year – and Kathy and Sarah were there with me through every one of the stories. It was a very fun year and I became close with both of them, so I was sad when the school year ended because I had a feeling that our friendship wouldn't sustain the long-term. (Our group cranked up the song that was popular that month, “Friends Forever” by Vitamin C) Had I not fallen in love with Joe, I think we would have been “friends forever,” but instead I spent most of my weekends with him junior and senior years, while they spent those years single at the time. There was some type of “falling out” between Sarah and the other four when they all moved into a house their junior year, and she went her separate way. I was disappointed that she didn't acknowledge my wedding in 2003, but was happy that everyone else did. It was a super fun night with them, as was the only other time I've seen them since we graduated college (at Ryan Dahlby's wedding in 2005). Sarah, however, I hadn't seen since 2001!

Thanks to the internet, it hadn't felt like it'd been a decade when I saw Sarah earlier this month (I knew she got married in April 2009 and had a baby in November 2010). . .but I'm sure we still have a lot to catch up on.

Since I wasn't able to attend the weddings that I was invited to after Dahlby's, I'm hoping to see the rest of the group again now that I'm back in the area. (And there's also talk of a ten year reunion from our college graduation for Murphy & McDonald house next summer in Chicago)While Kathy was the leader, Sarah was the ditsy one (I don't mean that negatively, I've always had great respect for her as she has great morals and she & I shared the most opinions and beliefs of the group), and I was the sweet, quiet one. :p

Mitch ended up known kind of as a loner. As soon as he graduated college (he switched his major from journalism to forrestry), he found out his girlfriend was pregnant so they moved to Squaw Lake, Minnesota where they broke up shortly after, but he's been happy since then spending his days as a hunter. The mother of his son turned out to be unfit, so after several years of trying to get full custody, he was awarded sole custody last year of Owen Wilson (no joke) and has no plans to ever get married or have any more children. Coincidentally, when Joe & I moved to Omaha and he started working at his first job, Joe met a guy named Shawn who was from the same small town in Iowa as Mitch (Tripoli), so both Shawn and his wife Sarah knew Kathy as well because they went to ISU, too.

Kathy is from a small town near Des Moines (Cumming) and always makes it back for at least one (if not more) ISU games each fall (as does the rest of the group). She and Joel (from Vilisca, Iowa) married in October 2008 and had their first child (a daughter) in October 2011 (this month). They live in Minneapolis, Minnesota; she works as an Associate Media Director at space150 and Joel (the flirt, charmer of the group) works at Brocade Communications.

Ashley [formerly McKenna] (from Raymond, Iowa) and Jon Johnson (from Hedrick, Iowa) both had a dark year as college sophomores; Ashley and I often had serious talks that she and I will never forget. They married on April 26 – the same day Joe and I got married – only in 2010 rather than 2003. They live in San Francisco. He is a Sr Automation Engineer at Eichleay Engineers.

Tracie [formerly Mayberry] (from Laurens, Iowa) lives in Evanston, IL and works as Director of Development at St Vincent de Paul Center. She was the bubbly, funny one in our group and was married on August 7, 2010; she and her husband are in the process of moving to Minneapolis.

Amanda [formerly Peirce] (from Grand Lake, Colorado) lives in Denver, Colorado and works as an Associate Broker at Innovative Real Estate Group. She was the smart one; married around the same time as I was and has a daughter (Elsa) born one month before Logan.

Ryan (Dahlby) lives in San Fransciso (is from Bettendorf, Iowa) and was married in October 2005. He was the all around nice guy; works as a mechanical engineer.

Matt (Bergman) lives here in Des Moines (is from Gilbert, Iowa) - he was the crazy one (the stories are endless), I'm not sure what he's doing but I know he's not married and has no kids.

Jayson (Koopmans) is from Minnesota and returned to his homestate after graduation where he works as an engineer. The quirky one, he got married in June 2008 and has two sons (born 2009 and 2011).

Joe had some other friends from McDonald house (Greg, Bob, and Sean – who, like Sarah, Sean works for the same company as Joe here in Des Moines) and I've often thought about writing a novel based on the 16-17 of us, but haven't figured out how to make it an easy to follow/simple storyline with that many characters (so am guessing I would cut the number in half and combine the traits of the different people). Anyway...so to think that if there hadn't been a left handed desk next to Sarah on that fall day in 1998, I probably never would have met her and therefore wouldn't have become good friends with Kathy and therefore wouldn't have met Joe and therefore wouldn't have Logan and Krissa!

The End :-) (Here we are exactly 12 years ago -- Halloween 1999 as The Pink Ladies from Grease. Kathy was Rizzo, I was Jan, and Sarah was Sandy (the other girl in the picture was just a random girl who lived on our floor)